February 13, 2022
Comes from Aquarius Spectrum, which he managed between 2016-2020. In 2011 he founded SoftWatch. Blade Ranger develops autonomous solutions for cleaning solar panels and the appointment is part of its preparation for commercialization
Blade Ranger, a company that develops autonomous solutions for cleaning solar panels, announced this morning to the stock exchange the appointment of Oded Fruchtman to the position of CEO of the company. Fruchtman, who will take up his post in early April, will replace Assaf Friedler, one of the company’s founders, who at his request will move to serve as the company’s business development manager.
Fruchtman joins Blade Ranger from Aquarius Spectrum, a company that develops cloud solutions for municipalities to manage water systems, where he served as CEO from 2016-2020 and as VP of Business Development for the past two years. Between 2014-2015 he served as CEO of the agro-tech company BreedIT and in 2011 was a partner in the establishment of SoftWatch, which develops solutions for monitoring the use of licensing software. Blade Ranger stated that Fruchtman’s in – depth knowledge of development and production processes and his experience in establishing marketing and sales systems for technological products in the global market, will assist the company in the transition to serial production of the company’s products.
Skimmer for cleaning solar panels
Dirt, dust, mud, animal droppings and more are considered to be major factors that impair the efficiency rate of solar panels and reduce the energy supply they provide. All of these sources of pollution are called soiling. A study conducted in 2020 by the British University of Exter, showed that all these factors can reduce the efficiency of the solar panel by tens of percent, and in extreme cases by up to 98%.
This is the challenge that Blade Ranger faces. The company’s first product is the Pleco robot, a portable robot that can be carried manually by a rechargeable battery. The robot can also clean panels with a slope of up to 45 ° and operates completely independently, including the ability to move from panel to panel when the space between them is small.
The company has also started working on the following products: P3 system for managing and monitoring the activity of a group of robots on a defined site. This system will operate on site or cloud and will allow to manage and monitor the activity of the robots even remotely. The next step in the company’s plan is to develop a robotic cleaning skimmer called the Plover, designed for use in facilities that are difficult to access, such as roofs without access stairs, solar-paneled panels located at inaccessible heights for cleaning crews and the like.
This is actually a cleaning robot that has short-range flight capabilities (pictured at the top of the article). At the same time the company began researching the next step, for which the latest patent approvals were obtained: development of autonomous vehicles and skimmers that are capable of moving the robot from one row of solar panels to another row.
Posted in categories: News, Subscriptions, Robotics
Posted in tags: Blade Ranger, Oded Fruchtman
